Collaboratively Exploring the Life and Lore of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld

Introducing Thief of Time

First Published in 2001 • #26 in the series • #5 in the Death story arc

SUMMARY:

Jeremy Clockson is a meticulous clock maker, and he’s perfectly sane, thank you. When a mysterious woman named Lady Myria LeJean enlists Jeremy to build the perfect clock, the young man takes to the task with perfectionist aplomb. But Lady LeJean is not what she seems, and forces far more sinister may be using Jeremy to play with the fate of mortals.

Meanwhile, young Lobsang Ludd graduates from the status of street thief to become the apprentice to Lu-Tze, a member of the History Monks, who observe and ensure the proper functioning of time. Soon the young apprentice is on a collision course with the young clock maker. Unusual events transpire.

And a sinister threat to time itself would not be complete without Death involving himself, which he patently cannot do. So it is that the grim reaper enlists his granddaughter, the school teacher Susan Sto Helit, to thwart danger and save the universe—again. With chocolate.

DIVING IN:

Anne: I. Love. Thief of Time. Out of a series filled with great books, Thief of Time makes it into my top 5. I can’t wait to write about it and discuss it with Ryan and share it with all of you!

Ryan: I remember enjoying Thief of Time but not loving it—could we finally disagree about a book? At any rate, I do recall that this book has some of my favorite things, which I can’t wait to revisit. Nanny! Yetis! Myria! I’m excited to revisit and reconsider this book.

FAVORITE LINE:

Anne:

“No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. Perhaps it was boredom, not intelligence, that had propelled them up to the evolutionary ladder.”

Ryan:

“Not an apocalypse. There had always been plenty of those – small apocalypses,not the full shilling at all, fake apocalypses: apocryphal apocalypses. Most of them had been back in the old days, when the world as in ‘end of the world’ was often objectively no wider than a few villages and a clearing in the forest.

And those little worlds had ended. But there had always been somewhere else. There had been the horizon, to start with. The fleeing refugees would find that the world was bigger than they’d thought. A few villages in a clearing? Hah, how could they have been so stupid! Now they knew it was a whole island! Of course, there was that horizon again…The world had run out of horizons.”

SUPERLATIVES:

Anne: Most Time Travel with Fewest Paradoxes

Ryan: The Best Damn Tribute to Chocolate Ever

PRETENTIOUS ACADEMIC SUBTITLES:

Anne: Thief of Time: Living with the Fourth Dimension

Ryan: Thief of Time: The Curious Case of the Yeti

WANT TO READ ALONG?

Bring your local librarian a banana and ask if Thief of Time is available in your library’s catalog. Otherwise, avail yourself of Stephen Briggs’ bass tones and get the awesome audiobook.